STEM EDUCATION ARTICLES & OPINIONS

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are an important part of education in a competitive global marketplace. In 2015, the United States educational system received some sobering news. The Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) ranked 15-year-old U.S. high-school students 40th in mathematics and 25th in science. These results were based on data from 71 participating nations. Some of the nations with higher student scores included much smaller and far less wealthy nations like Estonia, Slovenia and Vietnam. It was apparent that the U.S. educational system needed significant improvement in these areas if the students who would be the workforce of tomorrow were to have a competitive edge in a globalized, high-tech marketplace.